One of the most basic requirements, if you read the grading barem, of Writing, is “address the question”. The question asks me what, I have to answer that. It sounds simple, but the reality is that there are too many friends who are “adventurous”, focusing on “topics” rather than asking questions. So, we need to determine the problem requirements before we start writing Task 2.
Task 2 has 4 main types of topics:
A. Opinion
This topic usually has common sentences such as:
– How much do you agree with this statement?
– Do you agree with this statement?
– To what extent to do you agree with this statement?
You can easily identify this topic when it asks if we have: agree or disagree with a point raised earlier.
With this form, you can choose to follow one of two directions: (1) totally agree / disagree or (2) half lean and half fat (partly agree). With the complete form, you will follow the structure:
Open lesson => Reason 1 => Reason 2 => Summarize
With half lean, half fat form, you will write:
Post => Aspect agree => Disagree aspect => Summarize
Whichever type of answer you choose, the examiner will not judge whether you chose “true” or “false”. However, according to the experience of 99% of IELTS test takers, going “completely” is always safer and easier to write. There are some things that would be silly to write both yes and no, for example:
Smoke:
=> Idea 1: extremely harmful to health
=> Idea 2: looks very cool
Obviously, going in the “completely” direction will be a lot easier to write. Remember, the examiner doesn’t care what you answer, people just care how you express the answer.
B. Discuss / Discuss + Opinion
This article is easy to recognize, because it simply has the word … discuss. The discussion will give you 2 points. It may ask you:
– talking about 2 points of view (A)
– talk about 2 views + give your opinion (B)
This article is also quite easy to write, with type A, you just need to write:
Open lesson => Viewpoint 1 => Viewpoint 2 => Summary
With type B, people will ask what opinion you support, that is, you will have to choose. After choosing the opinion that you support, you will write
Open lesson => Viewpoint 1 => Viewpoints that I support => Summary
Note, when writing point 1 in form B, not that you “object” to this view. You simply give out the reason why others support it.
C. Problems + Solutions
We can identify this form of post quite easily by the phrases:
– What are the causes?
– What do you think causes this?
– What are the solutions?
…
In short, see “causes” & “solutions”. The way of writing this article is simple:
Open the post => Causes => Solutions => Emphasize the need to do right solutions
When writing causes and solutions, the easiest way is to write in an enumeration, for example
– Causes: There are a number of causes to …
– Solutions: A number of solutions can be used …
Then list out the causes and solutions. Quite systematic and simple.
D. 2-part questions
Finally, there are 2-part questions, which are quite easy to recognize because there will be no sign words for the above forms, but 2 question marks.
=> …? …?
This is also very easy to write:
Go to lesson => Answer question 1 => Answer question 2 => Finish lesson
So here are 4 types of topics in Task 2, please pay attention to write as required so you don’t get lost!